The Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) contributed to the 2nd United Nations Counter-Terrorism Week (24-30 June 2021). The Assembly represented national and international parliaments at the multi-day event, which serves as the main gathering of counterterrorism stakeholders worldwide. The CT Week featured two high level events and over 35 side-events.
On 30 June 2021, Hon. Gennaro Migliore, in his capacity as the PAM President, was the only Member of Parliament to take part as a key speaker at the 2nd UN High-Level Conference of Heads of Counter-Terrorism Agencies of Member States, the main event of the CT Week. The theme of the conference was dedicated to transformative technologies and addressing terrorism challenges in the new decade.
In his speech, PAM President focused on the key role played by parliamentarians in countering terrorism, in their legislative, oversight, and representative capacities. He called for strengthening regional cooperation in the Sahel and those parts of Sub-Saharan Africa that have recently become the world epicenter of terrorism, and shared PAM findings on the increasing role of technology as part of the terrorist threat in this region.
The President also took the opportunity to highlight that temporary battlefield detention of captured ISIL foreign terrorist fighters, as well as their families held in camps, is not a sustainable option, and called for the UN Member States to take responsibility to repatriate, prosecute, and rehabilitate their nationals, as appropriate.
Also, on 30 June 2021, PAM co-sponsored a High-Level Side Event entitled “Mainstreaming Counter-Terrorism Responses Across Parliamentary Functions”. On this occasion, Sen. Alia Bouran, President of PAM 1st Standing Committee, and PAM Senior Advisor on counterterrorism, Amb. Jean-Paul Laborde, jointly presented the new UN Guide for Parliamentarians to Facilitate the Implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, strategic document prepared with the critical contribution by PAM.
This Guide will serve as a concrete tool to enable greater synergies between the executive and legislative levels in the fight against terrorism.
Sen. Bouran spoke at lengths of the efforts of PAM over the years to bridge the gap between the executive and legislative branches by providing targeted support to Member Parliaments on the effective implementation of international counterterrorism instruments.
For his part, Amb. Jean-Paul Laborde, explained the practical benefits of the UN Guide for Parliamentarians, including policy guidance, a self-assessment toolkit, and a comprehensive collection of good parliamentary practices in the implementation of the different pillars of the UN Global Counterterrorism Strategy.
Earlier in the CT Week, on 25 June, PAM President, Hon. Migliore, had addressed the UN panel discussion on “ The importance of model legal provisions to develop and strengthen comprehensive national assistance plans for victims of terrorism”. Hon. Migliore praised the UN for the extensive consultation process it has conducted with national parliaments and parliamentary assemblies to develop model legislative provisions. He noted that PAM will offer its support to promote the UN model legislative provisions among its 34 Member Parliaments in the Euro-Mediterranean and Gulf regions.
The key role and contribution of PAM in the UN CT Week is part of the excellent long-standing cooperation between PAM and the UN on counterterrorism, which has been recently formalized through a dedicated Memorandum of Understanding.